Former Sec’y of State: Bush Made Humanitarian Intervention Impossible
by KTKJune 11th, 2008
Madeleine Albright points out yet another disastrous consequence of Bush’s imperialist war of choice: by announcing he would trample the sovereignty of any foreign nation without provocation (he threatened Iran again just yesterday), Bush forced every vulnerable nation into a defensive posture, strengthening their resistance to enforcement of international law and their reluctance to allow any interference in their internal affairs, even for humanitarian relief in disasters. In the process of destroying two countries to no benficial effect, Bush reversed a 10-year trend toward consensus on human rights, and made international intervention in crisis situations impossible.
THE Burmese government’s criminally neglectful response to last month’s cyclone, and the world’s response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world’s necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion — in places like Haiti and the Balkans — would seem impossible in today’s climate. . . .
The concept of national sovereignty as an inviolable and overriding principle of global law is once again gaining ground. Many diplomats and foreign policy experts had hoped that the fall of the Berlin Wall would lead to the creation of an integrated world system free from spheres of influence, in which the wounds created by colonial and cold war empires would heal.
In such a world, the international community would recognize a responsibility to override sovereignty in emergency situations — to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide, arrest war criminals, restore democracy or provide disaster relief when national governments were either unable or unwilling to do so.
During the 1990s, certain precedents were created. The administration of George H. W. Bush intervened to prevent famine in Somalia and to aid Kurds in northern Iraq; the Clinton administration returned an elected leader to power in Haiti; NATO ended the war in Bosnia and stopped Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of terror in Kosovo; the British halted a civil war in Sierra Leone; and the United Nations authorized life-saving missions in East Timor and elsewhere.
These actions were not steps toward a world government. They did reflect the view that the international system exists to advance certain core values, including development, justice and respect for human rights. In this view, sovereignty is still a central consideration, but cases may arise in which there is a responsibility to intervene — through sanctions or, in extreme cases, by force — to save lives.
The Bush administration’s decision to fight in Afghanistan after 9/11 did nothing to weaken this view because it was clearly motivated by self-defense. The invasion of Iraq, with the administration’s grandiose rhetoric about pre-emption, was another matter, however. It generated a negative reaction that has weakened support for cross-border interventions even for worthy purposes. Governments, especially in the developing world, are now determined to preserve the principle of sovereignty, even when the human costs of doing so are high.
Thus, Myanmar’s leaders have been shielded from the repercussions of their outrageous actions. Sudan has been able to dictate the terms of multinational operations inside Darfur. The government of Zimbabwe may yet succeed in stealing a presidential election.
Political leaders in Pakistan have told the Bush administration to back off, despite the growth of Al Qaeda and Taliban cells in the country’s wild northwest. African leaders (understandably perhaps) have said no to the creation of a regional American military command. And despite recent efforts to enshrine the doctrine of a “responsibility to protect” in international law, the concept of humanitarian intervention has lost momentum.
The global conscience is not asleep, but after the turbulence of recent years, it is profoundly confused. Some governments will oppose any exceptions to the principle of sovereignty because they fear criticism of their own policies. Others will defend the sanctity of sovereignty unless and until they again have confidence in the judgment of those proposing exceptions.
It goes without saying that America now enjoys no such confidence. We have become a pariah nation - responsible governments endorse the rejection of US intervention by the likes of the Sudan and Myanmar, because they also do not trust US aims or practices.
Albright does not mention, but it is equally relevant, that the US has insisted - by way of Republican refusal to ratify international treaties - that it uniquely must be exempted from provisions of international law, and that US personnel may not be held to account by international courts for crimes committed outside the US. Not only has the US placed itself above the law, but atrocities committed by US forces in Iraq, and the lawlessness and abuses of the Bush administration in its gulag of secret camps and torture centers, have put the US among the worst of nations in terms of violations of such laws. Bush has not only destroyed the international community’s ability to intervene in humanitarian crises, but has made America itself one of the oppressor regimes. The UN has also seriously proposed sending teams to monitor US elections - another legacy of Republican criminality. In every way, Bush has made the US one of the nations most in need of intervention. An educated nation with a robust economy and a high standard of living has become a benighted backwater in terms of human rights, fair and transparent political process, and expansionist militarism - and in doing so has, because of its overwhelming but irresponsible military might, crippled the entire rest of the world’s ability to respond appropriately.
Categories: Culture, Darfur, Economics, General, Iran, Iraq |
That Bush would be blamed for the actions of psychotic leaders in Myanmar is incredible. Psychotic paranoid people such as the leaders of the junta there do not need a reason to be that way. Everyone seems to view the US as a big monster now so fine, keep them out. But to use the actions of the US as an excuse to refuse to let any other countries help is disgusting and dishonest and just a way to avoid responsibility.
What would you expect from the nuttiest blogger in here and the worst Secretary of State of all time?
Big U:
You seem to have missed the point. Nobody is blaming Bush for what is happening in Myanmar. They are blaming him for deliberately debasing “humanitarian intervention” by a crass and murderous grab for oil, influence, corporate payouts, and salve for his own pathetic sense of inadequacy, justified by a cynical and false pretense of humanitarianism. His legacy is that no nation can now be believed when it claims humanitarian justification for anything, and no nation can take the risk of admitting foreign forces into its territory or region for fear that their leaders will turn out to be another Bush.
The growing consensus that nations can and must put national sovereignty in second place to humanitarian concerns has been destroyed. They swallowed Bush’s lies to that effect in Iraq and the result is almost-unprecedented disaster. Now even decent leaders must be mistrusted when they claim to be using force to protect the weak, because no nation can take the risk of allowing another Iraq to happen. He has put the fear of destruction in every nation’s mind, swamping the altruistic impulses better people have been working for generations to nurture. In making himself worse than the dictators the world would seek to remove from power, in causing more harm than the self-chosen enemies he sent other people to fight, he has forced every other nation to defend itself against those who claim to oppose injustice, thus stalling actual action against injustice.
It’s hard to think of a more depraved and ruinous incompetence than this administration has exhibited.
**His legacy is that no nation can now be believed when it claims humanitarian justification for anything, and no nation can take the risk of admitting foreign forces into its territory or region for fear that their leaders will turn out to be another Bush**
I don’t buy it. That is just a bunch of crap used by people who want to have an excuse to do whatever they want. All one has to do is look at the rebuilding happening in Afghanistan as an example of the good that can come from intervention. And it amazes me that you would use the phrase decent leaders when discussing a group like the Myanmar leadership.
Now in her article, she mentions:
1. Sudan, which the UN has repeatedly stated it would go into and force peace as long as the US provided the troops as no other countries want to use their soldiers.
2. Zimbabwe, which is no different now than it was 10 years ago. It is run by a psychopath who kills all of his opponents and no one has been interested in doing anything for a length of time that predates the Clinton administration but now people are scared to intervene because of Iraq? Bull.
3. Myanmar’s leadership is made up of military men who do not care about their people. The reality is that their neighbors do not interfere because China is a close ally to Myanmar so no one else dares to interfere.
Criticize Bush…he and his administration certainly deserve it. But to use their actions as an excuse for evil people to do what comes naturally is just wrong. There is no altruism in the Chinese leadership and there is very little altruism in several other nation’s leaders. Under the Bush administration incredible amounts of aid and help have been deployed (i.e. India after the Tsunami) but no one with a political axe to grind has any interest in looking at any good that has been done. For once it would be nice to see non-political rhetoric that would allow for an honest discussion of the facts but unfortunately that just never seems to happen.